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High-rise 'stampede' for inner north: council

Clay Lucas

A ‘‘stampede’’ of plans for new high-rise and medium-density building projects are being made in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, according to an inner-city council that says applications have sped up as a result of new state government planning laws.

Last week, 24 councils in Victoria had new residential development rules for their area put in place by Planning Minister Matthew Guy.

Among them was Moreland Council, which had asked for the introduction of new residential zones with tighter restrictions across 61 per cent of its municipality.

Instead, the government put in place new zones that the council argues provide less protection in key residential areas.

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Council figures showed that, since last year when the government announced its implementation plan for the new residential zones, there had been a 35 per cent rise in planning applications.

This included one month when over 220 planning applications were received – up from an average of between 80 and 100.

In May, the council received 208 planning applications, and last month it got 248. On the final day before the new zones came in, June 30, the council got 40 planning applications.

Moreland Mayor Lambros Tapinos said he had serious concerns the council had seen a tripling of the usual number of plans in June. He said the council urgently needed the new planning zones it had asked the minister to approve.

The council was, he said, in the position of having to manage a big jump in proposals but without the new zones it wanted to control development.

‘‘It is frustrating to have the solution we have put forward to the state government in limbo when there is a stampede of developers wanting to build in our municipality,’’ he said.

Ernest Healy, Monash University Centre of Population and Urban Research senior research fellow, said there had been a rush by developers to lodge planning applications.

‘‘Because residential zoning has defaulted to what is called the General Residential Zone, there is now a window of opportunity for developers to get medium density development in areas down the track they know will be designated for lower density,’’ he said.

He said there was an awareness among those wanting to develop property in council areas where ‘‘the rezoning process hasn’t been concluded to get as much as you can’’. Dr Healy said that the timeframes for the new residential zones had been ‘‘ridiculously compressed’’.

Fairfax Media asked Mr Guy’s spokeswoman why the council’s requested changes to its planning rules had not been made, and whether the minister believed the council was right to be concerned about the new residential zones it had received last week.

Mr Guy’s office declined to respond to the questions put to the minister unless it was guaranteed his quotes would be run in full.